BP is extremely relevant in the baseball world. People are free to believe or deny that as much as they'd like, but there's a reason that many BP writers go on to be hired by MLB clubs, other baseball syndicates, or other high profile statistic-driven jobs. I mean, the PECOTA projections here are the brainchild of Nate Silver whose arguably one of the most well respected statisticians in the world at present. I know it's fun to think of these guys as nerds you remember in high school sitting in their parent's basement, splitting time writing numerical fantasies about baseball and watching porn, but the reality is they're deeply intellectual people with a very, very sound understanding of the game and what they're trying to measure and evaluate. If there is a problem with it, it's that too many people who don't fully understand their work put waaaaaay too much stock into certain numbers at times (and subsequently miss the forest for the trees). But that doesn't really change their relevance in the baseball world. There's a reason why everyone looks at BP projections and few others.

I follow baseball as close as anybody and I don't know any of my baseball minded friends that ever read BP. I look at it and immediately start getting very sleepy, I've never read it. Their projections are just that, guesses. They are about as accurate as a dartboard usually like a previous poster said. They almost always undersell the Sox . I would bet I could guess the league standings as accurate or moreso than the number crunchers at BP just by looking at the lineups. Don't get me wrong, I love Bill James and sabermetrics, own a whole library of his and others works, but as far as assigning a won loss record before the season, there is no reason to put any stock into this stuff.